Chapter I

I suppose that I, Humphrey Arbuthnot, should begin
this history in which Destiny has caused me to play
so prominent a part, with some short account of myself
and of my circumstances.

I was born forty years ago in this very Devonshire
village in which I write, but not in the same house.
Now I live in the Priory, an ancient place and a fine
one in its way, with its panelled rooms, its beautiful
gardens where, in this mild climate, in addition to
our own, flourish so many plants which one would only
expect to find in countries that lie nearer to the
sun, and its green, undulating park studded with great
timber trees. The view, too, is perfect; behind
and around the rich Devonshire landscape with its
hills and valleys and its scarped faces of red sandstone,
and at a distance in front, the sea. There are
little towns quite near too, that live for the most
part on visitors, but these are so hidden away by the
contours of the ground that from the Priory one cannot
see them. Such is Fulcombe where I live, though
for obvious reasons I do not give it its real name.

Many years ago my father, the Rev. Humphrey Arbuthnot,
whose only child I am, after whom also I am named
Humphrey, was the vicar of this place with which our
family is said to have some rather vague hereditary
connection. If so, it was severed in the Carolian
times because my ancestors fought on the side of Parliament.

My father was a recluse, and a widower, for my mother,
a Scotswoman, died at or shortly after my birth.
Being very High Church for those days he was not popular
with the family that owned the Priory before me.
Indeed its head, a somewhat vulgar person of the name
of Enfield who had made money in trade, almost persecuted
him, as he was in a position to do, being the local
magnate and the owner of the rectorial tithes.

I mention this fact because owing to it as a boy I
made up my mind that one day I would buy that place
and sit in his seat, a wild enough idea at the time.
Yet it became engrained in me, as do such aspirations
of our youth, and when the opportunity arose in after
years I carried it out. Poor old Enfield!
He fell on evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster
up a favourite son who was a gambler, a spendthrift,
and an ungrateful scamp, in the end he was practically
ruined and when the bad times came, was forced to
sell the Fulcombe estate. I think of him kindly
now, for after all he was good to me and gave me many
a day’s shooting and leave to fish for trout
in the river.

By the poor people, however, of all the district round,
for the parish itself is very small, my father was
much beloved, although he did practise confession,
wear vestments and set lighted candles on the altar,
and was even said to have openly expressed the wish,
to which however he never attained, that he could see
a censer swinging in the chancel. Indeed the
church which, as monks built it, is very large and
fine, was always full on Sundays, though many of the
worshippers came from far away, some of them doubtless
out of curiosity because of its papistical repute,
also because, in a learned fashion, my father’s
preaching was very good indeed.